Created by producer/host Mike Stokey,
this show can best be described as "celebrities playing charades." Under
the title Pantomime Quiz, it began life in 1947 as a local Los Angeles
game show before becoming a yearly summer replacement on CBS in 1950. After two
summers on ABC in 1958 and 1959, it went on hiatus until returning for an entire
season in 1962-63 with the new name of Stump the Stars. (There were also
brief runs during the regular season on NBC, Dumont, and ABC throughout the 1950s.)

The format of this prerecorded-on-videotape
program was simple: two teams of four members each would vie for the most points.
Each member would take a turn acting out a (usually) clever quotation, title,
or epigram sent in by a viewer, and the other members would try to guess it. The
less time it took, the more points the team would be awarded.

The
makeup of the teams varied, but there were usually two guests, each one teaming
up with three regulars. Sometimes there were four guests (often drawn from the
cast of a TV show like Dick Van Dyke or Perry Mason) who would make
up one team and play against another team of four regulars. When the season started
in the fall of 1962, Pat Harrington Jr. was the host, but he was replaced by the
show's producer/creator Mike Stokey on December 10.

Stump
the Stars lasted only a single season on CBS, unable to compete with the popular
Ben Casey on ABC. It returned for brief runs in syndication in 1964 and
1969-70, but never recaptured its earlier glory. The show is fondly remembered
by fans, and VHS and DVD copies of its episodes aren't hard to find.